Eagles Notes: Johnson, Ajayi, Mills
Let’s take a quick look at a few items from the City of Brotherly Love:
- Eagles starting RT Lane Johnson is in the concussion protocol, as Jeff McLane of the Philadelphia Inquirer tweets. Johnson suffered a head injury during Sunday’s loss to the Patriots, and while he tried to play through it, the injury worsened and he was ultimately forced to exit (Twitter link via McLane).
- The Eagles can ill afford to lose Johnson, arguably the best right tackle in football, as they fight for the NFC East title. But if they are without Johnson for any period of time, they could turn to rookie Andre Dillard rather than veteran Halapoulivaati Vaitai, as McLane tweets.
- Jay Ajayi finally found an NFL home for 2019 when he signed with the Eagles on Friday. Interestingly, the deal includes a right of first refusal for 2020, as Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets. So if it wants, Philadelphia can match any offer Ajayi receives on the open market, which could be significant if the team lets Jordan Howard walk in free agency.
- Cornerback Jalen Mills is eligible for free agency this offseason, and while he is not perfect, he has been very good since returning from injury in Week 7, and McLane says Mills may be playing his way into a second contract with the Eagles (Twitter link).
- Eliot Shorr-Parks of 94WIP.com believes the Eagles need to completely overhaul their WR corps this offseason, and he offers a few names the club could target in free agency and the draft. He also says the Eagles could find a trade partner for Alshon Jeffery and/or DeSean Jackson, though obviously the returns on either player would be minimal.
NFC West Notes: Kendricks, Williams, 49ers
Mychal Kendricks‘ sentencing date keeps getting postponed, and the Seahawks keep reaping the rewards. Per Brady Henderson of ESPN.com, Kendricks is now due to be sentenced for insider trading — which he pleaded guilty to in September 2018 — in February 2020 (Twitter link). The date has been pushed back five times now, and instead of losing Kendricks on November 21 (the most recent date), Seattle will have their starting weakside ‘backer for its playoff run.
Now for more from the NFC West:
- The Cardinals signed tight end Maxx Williams to a modest one-year, $805K pact this offseason, but they have been impressed enough with his performance — especially as a pass blocker — to sign him to an extension several days ago. And he will get a sizable raise, as Ian Rapoport of NFL.com says the two-year pact, which keeps Williams in the desert through 2021, is worth $7MM (Twitter link).
- 49ers CB Jason Verrett and DL Kentavius Street are both getting healthier and are candidates to come off of IR at some point this season, as Matt Maiocco of NBC Sports Bay Area (citing head coach Kyle Shanahan) tweets. Both players have had difficult injury luck in their careers, so this is encouraging news, and San Francisco would surely love to have Verrett and Street as depth for the stretch run.
- The news is not as good for 49ers rookie WR Jalen Hurd, as Shanahan says it’s unlikely Hurd will be ready to come off of IR this year (Twitter link via Maiocco).
- The 49ers are also planning on being without DE Dee Ford for a couple of weeks, per Maiocco (via Twitter). Injuries have limited Ford during his first year in San Francisco, though he has managed to post 6.5 sacks. Ford is currently dealing with a hamstring injury.
Browns, LB Joe Schobert Have Discussed Extension
Browns linebacker Joe Schobert may not be a household name, but he has quietly become one of the best young LBs in football. The 2017 Pro Bowler announced his presence on the national stage during Thursday night’s win over the Steelers, flying all over the field to post 10 total tackles, a sack, and two interceptions.
Schobert, 26, has been a full-time starter since 2017, and he has recorded over 100 tackles in each of the past two years (he already has 92 tackles this season). He does well against the pass and against the run, and he has played every defensive snap for the Browns this year.
The 2016 fourth-round pick is also playing out the final year of his rookie contract, and as Nate Ulrich of the Akron Beacon Journal writes, the Browns and Schobert’s agent have discussed a contract extension. “They’ve had conversations,” Schobert said. “I just let him do his job and I just try to focus on football.”
When asked if he was open to staying in Cleveland, Schobert didn’t exhibit unbridled excitement. “Sure,” he said. “You always want to have the long-term security and comfort knowing where you’re going to be and what team you’re going to be on and that kind of stuff.”
Schobert may not be in Bobby Wagner territory, but he will almost certainly crack the $10MM/year mark when he signs his next contract. A five-year, $65MM pact with around $35MM in guarantees sounds like a good bet.
Tua Tagovailoa Undergoes Successful Surgery
Alabama QB Tua Tagovailoa underwent surgery on his right hip Monday morning, the team announced. Tagovailoa was carted off the field during the Crimson Tide’s victory over Mississippi State on Saturday due to a dislocated hip, and it was announced shortly thereafter that he would miss the remainder of the collegiate season.
Of course, Tagovailoa was widely projected to be a top draft choice in the 2020 NFL draft, with some believing he could be the No. 1 overall selection. His injury threw not only his draft status, but his entire football career, into jeopardy, but it sounds as if the surgery went well. The statement, written by team orthopedic surgeon Dr. Lyle Cain, says Tagovailoa’s prognosis is excellent and indicates the star signal-caller will make a complete recovery. Ian Rapoport of NFL.com passes along the full statement here.
Per Adam Schefter of ESPN.com, citing ESPN colleague Laura Rutledge, Tagovailoa will be rehabbing daily in Tuscaloosa (Twitter link). He will be able to resume athletic activity in three months and can begin throwing in the spring, so he may be able to fully work out for teams prior to the draft (if he chooses to enter).
Albert Breer of SI.com spoke with a few NFL execs to get their take on Tagovailoa’s draft stock, and, as expected, it seems too early to tell how teams will view Tagovailoa in light of his newest injury (he also has had two ankle surgeries in the last year, and his smallish stature may make him more susceptible to injury). He may come back to Alabama for his senior season and try to prove that he is not a health risk, though one of the execs Breer spoke with said he should still enter the draft in 2020.
In any event, the fact that the surgery went well is good news, and if he does decide to become a pro next year, he could be available to teams that may not have otherwise had a shot at him.
Jaguars Sign TE Nick O’Leary
The Jaguars have signed veteran tight end Nick O’Leary, as his agency, SportsTrust Advisors, announced (Twitter link). O’Leary was cut by the Dolphins at the end of October.
Jacksonville hasn’t had much luck with its TE group this year, as both James O’Shaughnessy and Geoff Swaim have landed on IR. Though he played in only five games for the Jags, O’Shaughnessy still leads the club’s tight ends in receptions (14), receiving yards (153), and touchdowns (two).
Third-round rookie Josh Oliver got the first start of his career in Sunday’s loss to the Colts, but as Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets, Oliver suffered small fractures in his back during the game and could miss the remainder of the season. Plus, Seth DeValve sat out the Indianapolis game due to an oblique injury, leaving Ben Koyack as the only healthy TE on the roster prior to the O’Leary signing.
O’Leary, 27, was selected by the Bills in the sixth round of the 2015 draft. He spent the first three seasons of his career with Buffalo, including a 2017 campaign where he hauled in a career-high 22 receptions for 322 yards and two touchdowns. The Bills cut him at the end of the 2018 preseason and he caught on with the Dolphins’ practice squad before being promoted to Miami’s 53-man roster. The Dolphins liked him enough to sign him to a one-year extension last December, but an ill-timed drop in the team’s Week 8 loss to the Steelers this year led to his ouster from South Beach.
In his career, O’Leary has played in 54 games (21 starts) and has 44 catches for 596 yards and three TDs.
Bears Not Planning Change At Kicker
In addition to a potential quarterback controversy, the Bears once again find themselves with an untenable situation at kicker. Eddy Pineiro emerged from the team’s open casting call this offseason with the kicking job in hand, and he started off the 2019 campaign on the right foot. Through the first two games of the season, he was perfect on extra points and field goal attempts, including a 53-yard FG as time expired in the team’s 16-14 win over the Broncos in Week 2.
He has only missed one PAT out of 18 attempts, but he is struggling with field goals. He has missed four of his past seven FG tries, including two missed 48-yarders in the first quarter of Sunday night’s loss to the Rams. He didn’t have any FG attempts the prior two games, but in a Week 8 loss to the Chargers, he missed two tries, including a 41-yarder as time expired that would have won it for the Bears.
After the Chargers game, head coach Matt Nagy said he would not look to replace Pineiro, and Pineiro’s struggles on Sunday have not caused Nagy to waver. As Colleen Kane of the Chicago Tribune writes, Nagy said “no” four times when asked during his post-game presser if he would explore other options at kicker. However, he did express frustration that Pineiro has not helped an already slumping offense put up points when the team does manage to get into scoring position.
Pineiro has converted 12 of 17 field goals on the season, a 71% mark that ranks 31st among NFL kickers. All five of his misses have been under 50 yards.
Colin Kaepernick’s Agent Not Optimistic Kaepernick Will Be Signed
NOV. 18: Kaepernick’s camp sent the video of the workout to all 32 teams on Sunday night, as Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports tweets. Nalley has reiterated his client’s willingness to interview and work out at any team’s facility.
NOV. 17: Prior to Saturday’s much-ballyhooed showcase for free agent QB Colin Kaepernick, two primary points of contention emerged between the league and Kaepernick’s camp: the waiver that the league wanted Kaepernick to sign, and the fact that the league did not allow Kaepernick to bring in an independent film crew to tape the workout.
The waiver issue sparked a great deal of debate, with prominent writers like Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk suggesting that the NFL was trying to back Kaepernick into a corner by making him sign a non-standard waiver that would have had him release any employment-related claims that might have arisen after the two sides settled Kaepernick’s collusion case in February. However, as Mike Jones of USA Today writes, the language of the league’s proposed waiver was very similar to language included in waivers for other rookie camps and free agent tryouts, and after reviewing the waiver itself, Florio did back off of his earlier argument a bit. He believes that, while the NFL’s waiver did not specifically target employment-related claims, Kaepernick’s camp was right to at least be skeptical of certain provisions in the waiver.
But Steve Wyche of the NFL Network, citing Kaepernick’s agent, Jeff Nalley, says that the independent filming issue — and not the waiver issue — was the more pressing concern (Twitter link). The consensus among most NFL writers and analysts appears to be that both the NFL and Kaepernick’s team share some of the blame for the fact that the workout did not go particularly smoothly. Indeed, as Jim Trotter of the NFL Network tweets, the league should not have announced the workout prior to resolving all potential areas of conflict, but Kaepernick should have accepted that he can’t call every shot.
Similarly, Jones opines that Kaepernick did not prove that he can carry himself with flexibility and professionalism, and he did not prove that he can take care of business with minimal fanfare. The fact that he inconvenienced over 20 NFL scouts by changing the workout location at the last minute does nothing to undermine the arguments of his detractors who believe he is not fully committed to playing again unless it’s entirely on his terms.
Perhaps as a result of that reality, Nalley says he is not optimistic that his client will sign with an NFL team (video link via Wyche). Nalley does appreciate the fact that the NFL was able to assemble a large contingent of clubs willing to at least give Kaepernick a look, and he concedes that it could be a step in the right direction.
Ian Rapoport of NFL.com passes along a scouting report of the workout itself, which is mostly positive except that it suggests Kaepernick’s accuracy and touch were shaky, especially on deep balls (Twitter link). The report indicated that Kaepernick is good enough to be on an NFL roster, but probably as a backup.
Meanwhile, although the Bills were initially reported Sunday morning as the “mystery team” that followed Kaepernick to the new workout location — only eight of the original 25 clubs that agreed to attend at the original site made the trek to the new site — Schefter says Buffalo did not, in fact, have any reps in attendance (Twitter link). As such, we’re still awaiting word on who the mystery team was.
Latest On Bears QB Mitchell Trubisky
The Bears announced that starting quarterback Mitchell Trubisky left Sunday night’s loss to the Rams due to a right hip injury. While Trubisky was not pulled until there was 3:24 remaining in the game, the team said the third-year signal-caller actually sustained the injury late in the second quarter.
However, there is plenty of skepticism as to whether an injury really led to Trubisky’s removal. He was in the midst of another disappointing performance in a year full of them, and it could be that head coach Matt Nagy wanted to bench him but did not want to embarrass him, so he either invented or exaggerated the severity of the injury. As Adam Jahns of The Athletic writes, Trubisky spoke after the game like a quarterback who was benched, not hurt. Although Jahns believes the injury was legitimate — Trubisky was walking with a noticeable limp — it also sounds as though it was something he could have played through if he was playing better.
But it’s not as if the Bears have a better option. Trubisky’s backup, Chase Daniel, is a 33-year-old journeyman who has started all of five games in his career. Plus, as Rich Campbell of the Chicago Tribune opines, Chicago needs to see what it has in Trubisky throughout the remainder of the year so that it can fully evaluate its quarterback situation moving forward. As we discussed last week, the 2020 QB market could be more robust than usual should the Bears decide to go shopping, so before they move on from the 2017 No. 2 overall pick, they should make sure he is not the long-term answer.
After all, Trubisky played fairly well in 2018, posting 24 TDs against 12 interceptions to go along with a 95.4 quarterback rating. 2019 has been a disaster, as the offense has frequently stagnated under his watch, but it’s not unreasonable to think he can turn it around if Nagy gives him the opportunity to do so. It seems much will depend on Trubisky’s right hip and Nagy’s faith in Daniel.
Latest On Browns-Steelers Brawl
NOV. 18: Per Nate Ulrich of the Akron Beacon Journal, Ogunjobi’s appeal will be heard Monday, and Pouncey’s appeal will be heard Tuesday. Schefter says that Garrett’s appeal will be heard on Wednesday (Twitter link). Schefter notes in a separate tweet that Garrett intends to be at the hearing to state his case in person.
NOV. 17: The NFL has suspended Browns defensive end Myles Garrett indefinitely, and Ian Rapoport of NFL.com reports that Garrett will appeal the ban (Twitter link).
In case you haven’t heard, Garrett was the central figure in a horrific melee that broke out in the final moments of Thursday night’s contest between the Steelers and Browns. While both fanbases certainly have their own perspective on the matter, it’s clear that Garrett unnecessarily drove Steelers QB Mason Rudolph into the ground after Rudolph released a pass. The play could have been flagged — and may have been if the game were in doubt at that point or if there were more then eight seconds left — and Rudolph took exception to it.
Rudolph grabbed at Garrett’s helmet and kicked out at him, which caused Garrett to escalate the scuffle beyond what anyone could have reasonably expected, yanking Rudolph’s helmet off of him and striking him over the head with it. That naturally led to a scrum between both clubs that saw Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey (three games) and Browns defensive lineman Larry Ogunjobi (one game) receive suspensions. Rudolph, Pouncey, and Ogunjobi were all fined, and obviously Garrett will be fined as well.
As Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports writes, more fines will be coming for Rudolph and others. While NFL head of football operations Troy Vincent and his team initially reviewed the footage of the brawl with a focus on who committed offenses worthy of a suspension, they will now comb through the tape to determine the full amount of fines (and what other players may deserve them). Vincent says there will certainly be another wave of fines on the way, and both the Steelers and Browns have been hit with $250K sanctions.
Adam Schefter of ESPN.com says the appeals for Garrett, Pouncey, and Ogunjobi will be heard on Monday and Tuesday by jointly-appointed officers Derrick Brooks and James Thrash. The rulings are expected no later than Wednesday. Schefter adds in a separate report that at least 10 players will be fined, and that the announcement will be issued next weekend.
Per Rapoport, Garrett’s camp will argue that the CBA does not allow for indefinite suspensions for on-field acts and that the league should impose a ban for a finite number of games.
Conflict Between Vic Fangio, Coaching Staff?
The Broncos hoped that they would be competing for a playoff spot this year, but they are 3-6, are in last place in the AFC West, and their starting QB, Brandon Allen, just played his first regular season game two weeks ago (though he did win it).
As such, Denver’s playoff hopes are quite slim, and apparently head coach Vic Fangio isn’t helping matters. Per Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports, there has been consistent conflict between Fangio and his staff, and even between Fangio and some of his players (like veteran wideout Emmanuel Sanders, who was traded to the 49ers last month).
La Canfora’s sources say that the relationship between Fangio and his offensive assistants is particularly troubling, with Fangio quick to dispute offensive play calls. The 61-year-old, who is in his first season as a head coach, can reportedly come across as overbearing on the headsets, and one source said, “[t]here is a negative reaction to almost every offensive play call.” Another source was more blunt, saying, “[p]retty much everyone gets treated like crap.”
Of course, the roster that GM John Elway has put together is deeply flawed, and Fangio cannot be held entirely culpable for the lack of production he has gotten from the quarterback position and the offensive line. La Canfora does not offer any speculation as to whether Elway will consider firing Fangio after the 2019 season, but the fact that Elway stuck by former HC Vance Joseph — who was clearly in over his head — for two seasons suggests that Fangio may get a chance to right the ship and work on his people skills in 2020.
That is especially true given that the team’s defense has generally performed well, which reflects well on the defensive-minded Fangio. But if the team can’t get its QB situation figured out — and Elway has not shown that he is capable of finding a franchise signal-caller — 2020 may not go much better than 2019 has.